Wouldn’t it be nice if traveling could be a blissful affair? Wouldn’t you be more inclined to travel if you could put a genuine smile on your face from the moment you depart to the moment you arrive back at home? I know I would.

Fortunately, with a bit of work, all of that is easy to overcome. All you need is a healthy dose of technology and a few tweaks to your traveling mindset. Here are the skills you’ll need.

Plan, Research, and Plan Some More

The willingness to plan and research is a non-negotiable skill. In fact, I’d consider it to be the most important skill by a longshot — so important that without it, stress-free travel is pretty much impossible. That’s not an exaggeration.

Planning does not necessarily entail a full-blown itinerary of your entire trip, breaking down every single hour into a schedule that leaves you no room for deviation. However, the more you plan, the less likely you are to be caught off guard by an unforeseen issue.

Pack Properly and Ahead of Time

There’s no worse feeling than being a thousand miles out and realizing that you left an important item or device back at home on your coffee table. Well, there is one feeling that’s worse: realizing that you forgot to bring multiple things along with you.

You cannot neglect the importance of packing ahead of time. In a way this is just an extension of planning ahead, but it’s crucial enough to deserve its own point. You should be packed and ready to go at least 24 hours before your time of departure, which should give you enough time to remember anything you might’ve overlooked.

Adhere to Traveling Etiquette

Whether you’re driving a few hours out of town or flying to a country on the other side of the globe, it’s important that you get into the mindset of a traveler — and a big part of this is being aware of the mannerisms and etiquette that are expected of you wherever you end up going.

For example, gestures or tones that are acceptable in one country may be construed as aggressive or offensive in another country, and this could be a source of friction for you. We recommend consulting a resource like Travel Etiquette or Kwintessential’s International Etiquette Guide to minimize this.

Be Ready to Adapt and Stay Calm

So you’ve gotten this far. You’ve done all of your research, you’ve planned everything out so that nothing can catch you off guard, and you’re all packed and ready to go. If you’re lucky, you’re about to have the time of your life. But most of us aren’t so lucky.

Even if you’ve done everything properly and minimized your chance of something going wrong, something might still go wrong. If that happens, how are you going to react? Staying calm and collected should be a priority.

Travel Doesn’t Have to be Stressful

If I had to boil it all down into one quick tip, I’d refer to the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin himself: if you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail. Or in this case, get everything organized and researched and packed long before you step out the door and there’s a good chance everything will go smoothly.

How have you dealt with stressful travel? What other tips, tricks, and apps have you used to ease the process? We’d love to know! Share with us in the comments below.